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Re: Not trying to be funny

The common attitude in the US has always been that even a little black blood makes a person black. This has been supported by law. The case of Plessy v. Ferguson said that Plessy was "black" even though he had only one distant black ancestor. They called it the "one drop rule" and it you had one drop of African blood,then you were black.

Interestingly,it is the reverse in West Africa, where even a little white makes a person white. Many African-American Peace Corps volunteers are surprised to go over there and find that the Africans do not consider them black at all.

There used to be plenty of words to describe a person's racial composition precisely. A quadroon was 1/4th black and 3/4 white. An octroon was 1/8th black. And so on.

They stopped using those words, but the way the Census Bureau tries to document races even now is still a confusing mess. There is a movement of people who suggest the only correct answer to the race question is "Human."

And I won't be here to see the dayIt all dries up and blows awayI'd hang around just to seeBut they never had much use for meIn Levelland. (James McMurtry)

Re: Not trying to be funny

Interesting and thanks for the replies. I don't quick understand why the thread would be locked though. It was a legitimate question.

Just about everything that could turn political, religious, or racial is locked. The Admins don't want to deal with it anymore, and after what happened on the old news and politics forum here who could blame them?

Re: Not trying to be funny

I was wondering the same thing but I understand why it is big in that he is 1/2 African American which is by far the largest ratio of any president. I wonder if any other presidents have had even a little bit of African American blood in them? I wouldnt be surprised.

But as far as octaroon is concerned I first heard it on SNL and I thought it sounded rather racist.